SFCOPS_079_fl.jpg Former Bayview Station Capt. Rick Bruce beside his lawyer Jim Collins held a press conference in defense of his innocent. Captain Rick Bruce was suspended along with eighteen San Francisco police officers without pay for taking part in an offensive video. Mayor Gavin Newsom found himself defending what he called a common sense decision. �I know racism when I see it. I know sexism when I see it. I know inappropriate behavior when I see it," Newsom told reporters at a news conference yesterday afternoon. More clips from the 28-minute video have been released that show scenes of a black officer eating from a dog bowl and an Asian officer having trouble riding a bicycle. The police department has not released the names or ranks of the suspended officers, many of whom were based in the Bayview-Hunter's Point station. The video's producer, Officer Andrew Cohen, acknowledged that he is one of the officers suspended. Cohen defended the tape, saying it was intended as a spoof for his unit's Christmas party. 12/10/05 San Francisco CA Frederic Larson San Francisco Chronicle

Photo: Frederic Larson

SFCOPS_079_fl.jpg Former Bayview Station Capt. Rick Bruce beside...

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A video titled "Charie's Angels" shows San Francisco Police Captain Rick Bruce licking his lips to various women and transgender men during a press conference with Mayor Gavin Newsom and Chief of Police Heather Fong to announce a series of videos made by San Francisco Police Officers of the Bay View Police Station. Twenty officers, including Captain Rick Bruce, were suspended due to the release of the videos to the public on a website.
Event on 12/7/05 in San Francisco. JAKUB MOSUR / The Chronicle

(12-09) 12:14 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- The highest-ranking San Francisco police officer facing suspension in connection with video skits that city officials have labeled sexist and racist accused Mayor Gavin Newsom and Police Chief Heather Fong of smearing his name and demanded a public apology.

Capt. Rick Bruce, 49, has been on leave from the Bayview station for the past four months for reasons unrelated to the videos. One of the skits shows several people, including other officers, a homeless woman and a transgender person, rolling their tongues suggestively and saying, "Oh, captain." The video shows Bruce flicking his tongue in separate shots in return.

In a press conference at his lawyer's office, Bruce said today that the shots of him were old footage from training videos, in which he would roll his tongue to signal that he had made a mistake and needed to reshoot a scene. He said he had no idea a Bayview station officer had edited the footage into the video skit.

"I'm deeply disturbed that the mayor and the chief of police saw fit to release this video to (a) press conference -- a video that prominently features my image -- and neither of them took the five minutes that it would have taken to ask me about my participation in the video," Bruce said.

"I'm asking that the mayor of this city and chief of police acknowledge now that I've had nothing to do with the production of this video, and that they do it publicly and with the same zeal that they had when they conducted their press conference," Bruce said.

Fong told reporters Wednesday night that the videos were "egregious, shameful and despicable." Newsom declared that the videos were insensitive toward women and minority groups, signaled that the Police Department's culture needed to be changed, and announced formation of a blue-ribbon commission to try to do that.

Bruce said that although Fong publicly has stated that he is among the officers facing suspension, he has not been formally notified of any such action.

"I don't believe I've been suspended yet, nor do I know if the department intends to suspend me," he said.

The head of the police officers union said Thursday that 18 officers had been notified of their suspensions. Most work at Bayview station.

Peter Ragone, a spokesman for Newsom, said Bruce's press conference was nothing more than a "smokescreen" to obscure the captain's role in the controversy.

"What we're asking for is accountability," Ragone said. "The bottom line is, he was the captain when all this occurred.

"Don't you think someone should ask him if he should be held accountable?" Ragone said. "He should be taking accountability for it. We're not going to apologize for asking him to take accountability."

The video skits were assembled on a DVD that its producer, Officer Andrew Cohen, intended to show at the Bayview station's Christmas party but never did.

He posted several scenes on his personal Web site, including the one with Bruce and others depicting officers running over a homeless woman, ogling female motorists and doing Tai Chi.

Authorities say the DVD contains other images that have not been made public, including one showing an African American officer wearing a dog collar and eating out of a dog bowl.

Bruce said that as a result of the publicity about the videos, he has been asked to resign as coach of his eighth-grade son's basketball team, and that school officials have told him and his wife that his son will probably need therapy to deal with the psychological fallout.

"Members of the public now believe that I oversaw the production of a video which has been labeled racist, sexist and homophobic," Bruce said. "I've not been interviewed and I've not been asked what I knew, when I knew it or what I did -- all questions the chief of police says she wants answered.

"I spent my entire adult life trying to make a difference in the most crime-ridden neighborhoods in San Francisco," said Bruce, who joined the force in 1977. "Until four months ago, I was very proud of what I believed to have been substantive and positive changes that took place on my watch."